Day 5
Did anyone see that Sting musical “The last ship”? It did a tryout here in Chicago, and then
went to NY. So so boring--Sting rehashed
the decline of the boat building industry in England--something that mattered
to Sting, but I just didn’t care. And I LOVE Sting! The
costumes and dancing were amazing, but enough with sad white dudes. We GET it.
Anyway, there’s a song motif that keeps repeating “The last ship…the
last ship”. So boring. The lead’s name
was GIDEON (not Gordon! It’s different, see?) and Sting shoved in a few songs
from his Soulcages cd (“When we dance” was the most surprising---it seemed very
out of place).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbMY9lf58FA
Anywho, this last leg of the journey seemed the LONGEST and
MOST boring. Across the desert, through
Palm Springs (I do love the windmills, and PS is a favorite spot of mine) and
finally, into the sprawl of LA county.
I was thrilled to past through West Covina (Shoutout to
Crazy Ex-Girlfriend!) and I saw an Aldi truck, so that was promising, too!
I landed at my sweet little cottage/cabin in Highland Park,
a hipster neighborhood in LA!
I quickly dumped off pickle and the far too many bags I
packed for a month away, and hightailed to a local mechanic to get my car
underside shoved back up, and that mechanic, too, could not make the light
malfunction in daytime. It’s like a
MYSTERY! He helped me troubleshoot, and
we figured out if you flick the light on and off, it eventually “sticks” and he
also pooh-poohed the light bulb I had picked up in Texas (“You want the German
one. This one is no good”) I would have
been insulted/skeptical, but since he shoved my car underbody up for free
(FREE! But I tipped the mechanic in
cash), I decided to file away his notes.
I rushed home, walked Pic, and headed to week 2 of class at
the Writing Pad. I was in LA to test out
the waters of the town as a potential home down the road, and take this “Sitcom
Pilot Class”. I knew I wanted to write
about a few things: Family, Technology
and work, real middle-class people (I feel like it’s all really
upper-middle-class families on TV nowadays---Modern Family, Big Bang Theory,
etc. It’s part of why I love Crazy
Ex-Girlfriend so much---people have real jobs and real struggles. And I used to
love Cheers, Roseanne, etc). Anyway,
week 2 of class was great---we did something with our beat sheets maybe? A beat sheet is essentially an outline of
your sitcom idea—you write down your scene descriptions, sticking to the action
of the scene, not really worrying about the jokes. In a typical sitcom, there is a really clear
structure and it’s key to learn this.
Just like when I teach sketch, a lot of students will want to “break the
structure” which makes sense---they are tired of the same old, same old. But
even the most innovative/funny sitcoms still follow this traditional
structure. So, it’s important to
learn---and what will “break through” is more your own POV, the setting and
characters and situations you put them in, versus fucking with the form/structure.
Anywho, when I have my sitcom pilot done, I may tell you all
about it. But I am shy of sharing it!
No comments:
Post a Comment